Daily Search Forum Recap: April 7, 2010

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

Google AdWords Removing Account Bans?
Google has been very strict with who they now allow to advertise on their AdWords platform. Late last year they started to mass ban AdWords advertisers who they felt were downgrading the quality of their search ads. Since then, I have seen thread after thread from advertisers who have been banned by Google. With any mass banning, you have to imagine there is some collateral damage - that is, those who really should not have

YouTube Promises Changes After Redesign
YouTube redesigned their video page about a week ago and there have been lots and lots of feedback on the design. Many die hard YouTubers dislike many of the changes and thus YouTube is promising changes. Liz from YouTube posted a thread in the YouTube Help forums. She said that we can expect changes in the upcoming months, those changes include: Better separation of commentsImprovement to comment fonts and indentationNumber of comments and comment timestamps

Google Maps Replacement Decals Still Not Sent Out
In mid-February we reported a way to get Google Maps replacement decals in case you lost or received a damaged decal. This was a popular request, since many were upset that either the decal did not work or that it was lost or damaged in the mail. In short, the way to request a new decal was to use this form. And many did use that form but no one has yet to receive a

Google Webmaster Tools Messages Not Forwarded by Email?
About 10 months ago or so, Google added a feature to email messages from the Google Webmaster Tools message center to verified email addresses. This was very handy for people who did not login to Google Webmaster Tools on a regular basis. The thing is, it doesn't often work. I have mine set to send an email to me and I would say that maybe 20% of the time, I will get an email notification

Google Local Business Center SMS Verification Issue
A Google Maps Help thread has continued reports of the SMS based Google Local Business Center verification not working correctly. When someone receives an SMS pin and enters it in the Google Local Business Center, they are hit with an "Incomplete" response. Google Maps Guide Linda confirmed the issue in the thread and said: Is this occurring only for SMS request for PIN? Please let me know if this is what you're experiencing. The work

Google AdWords API Developer Registration Updated
For anyone seeking to register themselves as a new AdWords API developer, you may want to know that the registration process recently changed. Eric Koleda from the AdWords API Team said in a Google AdWords API thread: Are you trying to register as an AdWords API developer? If so, the process has changed recently. Follow the steps on this page to register as a developer. So if you end up on a weird page, just

April 2010 Google Webmaster Report
Our ongoing Google Webmaster reports continue with the April 2010 WebmasterWorld thread that has dozens of Google obsessed webmasters and SEOs tracking every little change at Google. Here are some observations pulled out from the thread, agree or disagree with them - that is up to you: Caffeine creeping into Google.comPageRank updateMajor traffic changes from GoogleURLs without snippets showing more oftenIncrease in results found for site commandsMore rumors Caffeine will be launching in April (due

Reverse Pagination For SEO?
Many sites with pagination have an SEO problem. As you add new content to the site, more pages are created and the older content moves from page 1 to page 2 and so on. This produces an issue where (1) Google's page one content is out of date to what users see, (2) page one content can sometimes be duplicate to page two, based on a crawl lag and (3) even with different content, many

Malware Details Graduates In Google Webmaster Tools
On Friday, @websonic asked me where the Malware Details feature in Google Webmaster Tools went. Ultimately we found it under the "Diagnostics" section in Webmaster Tools. Yes, it was moved from the Labs section of Google Webmaster Tools to the Diagnostics section. Malware details has officially graduated from Webmaster Tools Labs. I believe this may be the first feature in the Webmaster Tools Labs that graduated. JohnMu confirmed the change via Twitter saying: @RalphMRivera @rustybrick

More & More Seeing Google's Blue Jazz Interface
I reported this on Friday at Search Engine Land but I am seeing tons of threads popping up in the forums about this. Yes, if you are seeing a new and weird looking Google, you are not crazy, you are seeing the new Google "Jazz" interface that we all likely will see one day. Here is a new screen capture: For our past coverage of this interface see here, here and here. Forum discussion at

Google April 2010 PageRank Update
Google had update the toolbar PageRank scores over the weekend. The last PageRank update was about 3 months ago in late December or early January. But an interesting fact is that Google has updated their PageRank values in the toolbar every year in April since 2004. Last year, we reported an April 2009 PageRank update, the year before that we had an April 2008 PR update, then the year before that an April 2007 update

No Easter Logo At Google Again
It has been at least five years since Google placed a Google Easter logo around Easter time on their pages. This year is no exception, if you visit Google.com, you won't see a special Google logo or Doodle for Easter. As you can imagine, there are many people upset with Google over this lack of a logo. I have linked to threads and threads of people complaining below. Bing, Ask.com and Dogpile have special logos